


once more with the imaginable

by blackkat



Series: the last immortal leaf is dead and gold [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Dimension Travel, Friendship, Humor, M/M, OR IS IT, One-Sided Attraction, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Madara thinks, again, of tangled limbs and a lifeless sprawl. The way Tobirama’s body lay crumpled at the foot of the stairs, perfectly, awfully still. For half of a desperate minute, Madara had thought he was already too late, and helpless fury had raged in his chest, a storm fit to devour the world.With that memory so close, perhaps braving Tobirama's library isn’t the worst thing he could do. Two weeks now he’s guarded the door without ever managing to set foot inside, but—maybe this time he can.





	once more with the imaginable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soliamurr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=soliamurr).



“Isn’t sulking beneath your dignity, brother?” Izuna asks, smirking even as he shuffles through the stack of books he’s carrying.

Madara rolls his eyes, folding his arms over his chest, and tries not to shift uncomfortably under his brother’s sharp stare. He’s not doing anything out of the ordinary, he tells himself firmly. He has every right to be out here, doing his job.

Without his armor.

In the middle of the night.

(Perhaps he didn’t think that excuse through quite as thoroughly as he should have.)

“Isn’t running errands for that hyena beneath yours?” he retorts, because at least two of those volumes Izuna is carrying are on runics, and Madara knows full well and with the certainty of many eyebrows burned off in failed attempts that Izuna is hopeless at the subject. His current dalliance, however, is one of the masters in the field, and the one responsible for all of the school’s wards.

Not that the wards catch anywhere near enough, Madara thinks, and it’s tired. Tired in the way of too few nights spent resting, and too many nights of restless dreams where he was five minutes too late. Where his patrol took him a different way and he never found the pale body sprawled at the foot of the stairs, chest terrifyingly still.

“Tōka,” Izuna says with the certainty of the idiotically besotted, “is a _gorgeous_ hyena, thank you very much.” He turns his nose up at the sound of Madara spluttering in disbelief, pointedly looking over at the wide, engraved doors that stand shut tight, and asks, “Do you really think someone’s going to walk right in the front door and stab him?”

His tone is skeptical, but Madara has spent two full weeks now haunted by the tacit admission in the hospital wing. _I don’t remember_ , Tobirama had said when Madara wanted to know who pushed him, and—

It’s a justifiable excuse. He hit his head hard enough that he stopped breathing, after all. That’s sure to damage memory no matter how skilled the healer. But for the first time, Tobirama didn’t try to deny what was happening. He practically admitted that someone had attempted to kill him, and it’s enough to make Madara's blood turn to ice in his veins. It was a main stairway where Tobirama nearly met his end, and in light of that, what's to say he’s any safer locked away in his dusty library?

“Precautions,” he manages to get out, even though his throat feels as tight as if there's a noose around it. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Izuna stares at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed, then huffs. He takes a step forward, shoving his entire armful of books at Madara so suddenly that Madara yelps and catches them automatically, staggering at the force of it as they hit his chest.

“Actually,” Izuna says breezily over the sound of his wheezed curse, “I do. Tōka’s making dinner. You can return those for me, right, Madara?”

Madara puffs up. “I will _not_ —” he starts loudly, but Izuna tosses him a truly maddening smirk, turns on his heel, and all but bolts back towards the teacher’s quarters.

Sometimes, Madara wishes with all of his heart that he was an only child.

No. No, he doesn’t mean that and never has. Losing his other brothers to the fighting nearly broke him; he doesn’t know what he would do if he lost Izuna as well. There’s been entirely too much losing in his life already.

He thinks, again, of tangled limbs and a lifeless sprawl. The way Tobirama’s body lay crumpled at the foot of the stairs, perfectly, awfully still. For half of a desperate minute, Madara had thought he was already too late, and helpless fury had raged in his chest, a storm fit to devour the world.

With that memory so close, perhaps braving the library isn’t the worst thing he could do. Two weeks now he’s guarded the door without ever managing to set foot inside, but—maybe this time he can.

Madara growls at his own hesitance, hefts the books in one arm, and shoulders the door open—carefully, because Tobirama’s icy disdain is never worse than when he thinks his precious books are threatened. There's no one immediately in evidence, though; the room is lowly lit, more so than usual, with all of the fire sprites gone from their lanterns. Madara stares at one of the empty cages for a long moment, eyes narrowing, and then turns to scan the soaring shelves. A flutter of panic slides down his spine, and he wonders suddenly, abruptly, whether someone managed to get past him and enter the library without his notice. Climbed in through a window, maybe, or slipped in unseen as someone else was leaving. Tobirama’s been on his own in here for _hours_ , and Madara feels a little sick at the thought.

There isn’t a drop of magic in Tobirama’s veins. He might come from one of the most powerful magical families in Fire Country, in _any_ of the Elemental Countries, but beyond his wit and his sharp tongue he’s entirely defenseless. Madara hadn’t truly realized that until two weeks ago.

Setting Izuna's books down on the main desk as carefully as possible, he reaches for a touch of magic, lets it swirl to life at his fingertips. Not formed, not yet, but there and ready as he steps into the shadow of the first shelf. It’s easily two and a half times the height of a man, and the feel of the contained power in the volumes is a heady thing—one of the reasons a man without magic was chosen as the guardian of this place, Madara knows, regardless of what he’s heard Tobirama snarl at Hashirama about pity and keeping family embarrassments out of the way. Madara has spent enough time here that it doesn’t make his head spin quite as much as it did when he first stepped in, but it’s still overwhelming, disorienting, and that’s the last thing he needs right now.

With the fire sprites gone, the shadows are deeper than normal, only the flicker of the covered braziers to lend their light to the towering hall. Madara tries not to let his footsteps ring out too loudly, slipping through the shelves and trying to remember which section Tobirama was frequenting last time Madara visited. Herbology, he thinks, because it was by the window on the eastern side, and the rising sun had touched Tobirama’s face, caught on the lines of his cheekbones and turned his hair to burning silver light, and Madara had forgotten even the pretense of reading.

It was Tobirama’s sharpness that caught him from the first, the fury at the world that lay hidden in his eyes, but that was a spark of nebulous attraction that burned out quickly in the face of the reality. What hasn’t burned out is Madara's reaction to the look in Tobirama’s eyes when his favorite of the students come to hang off of him, when he can sit with his brothers without talk of magic, when he’s caught in a good book and taken elsewhere. When he seems to forget, just for a moment, that there's anything unjust in their world. Few moments, far between, but when Madara sees them he can never bring himself to look away.

Setting his jaw, he quickens his step, no longer quite so worried about secrecy. There's no other movement that he can hear, no rustling, no breaths beyond his own coming too quick in his chest. He wants to call out, but somehow it feels like getting no answer will just make the rising horror worse, and he can't—

“Why are you running?” an annoyed voice asks, and Madara is so startled he trips over his own feet. With a yelp, he catches himself on the corner of a shelf and shoves back upright, then spins, looking for the culprit.

No one. The row is empty.

“Tobirama?” he demands, and worry makes it sharper than he intends it to be. “Is that you?”

From above his head, there's a sigh, a faint scuff. Madara wrenches his head up so fast he almost strains something, and is just in time to see a head of silver hair appear over the edge of the shelf. Over the _top edge_ of the shelf, at least fifteen feet in the air.

Madara gapes, unable to find any words at all. Tobirama stares back, one brow arched, face set into perfectly disinterested lines. The silence stretches for a good thirty seconds before Tobirama closes his eyes like he’s asking for patience, opens them again, and asks, “Why are you running in the library, Madara?”

 _Madara_ , again, rather than the normal coolly dismissive _Uchiha_. It would take a stronger man than Madara not to feel the use of his given name like an impact, hitting him in the chest and radiating out in tingling lines. He catches his breath, the way he always does, but there's no time to dwell on it.

“What do you think you're _doing_?” he demands, but it comes out as more of a shriek. “You have a _head wound_ , you imbecile! How did you even get _up there_?”

Regardless of what name he’s taken to addressing Madara with since his fall, that look of deep judgement hasn’t changed at all. Tobirama stares at him through narrowed eyes, like he’s contemplating how Madara could possibly have gotten his position being as dumb as he is, and then he blows out a breath through his nose that’s equal parts aggrieved and impatient. “I climbed,” he says blandly, then shifts forward, leaning halfway over the edge to slide a book back onto the shelf and give Madara a complete heart attack at the same time. Before Madara can even open his mouth to yell at him for it, Tobirama grabs the shelf, twists his body, and tumbles over the edge.

Madara's heart catapults itself into his mouth, and a red haze of terror crashes over him. He lunges, mind full of crumpled bodies and sprawled limbs, a shout of panic tearing loose from his throat, and—

Halfway down, Tobirama catches himself with one hand on the bookcase, a foot on the curve of a decorative edging. It’s just enough redirected momentum that he drops the rest of the way to the ground in an easy motion, looking entirely unruffled, and Madara only just manages to pull up short before they collide.

He doesn’t bother to stop, because his pulse is racing so fast he’s practically shaking with it, and the explosion of air from his lungs is ragged. With a desperate sound, he ignores the fact that Tobirama hates to be touched, grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him up against the books.

“You _idiot_!” he snarls, and thinks of it again, unable to stop himself: blood on the ground and soaking silver hair, closed eyes, unmoving chest. One hand flung out as if to grab the railing of the staircase, a last desperate attempt to save himself, and if Madara hadn’t passed by, if Madara hadn’t been there _right at that second_ —

“You could have _died_!” he hisses, furious at entirely the wrong person, right into wide red eyes. Curls his fingers into soft cloth, and wants to drag Tobirama right into him, clutch him to his chest and not let go, but.

But.

Another shaking breath, and he forces his fingers to unclench, makes himself step back. Says, because he can't think of a single damn thing except the _I love you, I love you, don’t die_ that’s beating a tattoo in his chest, “Your brothers would be _heartbroken_ , you bastard. Be _careful_.”

Madara is ready for Tobirama to bristle, to snarl at the mention of his brothers. It’s one of the things Madara finds most frustrating, the resentment of his family. Understandable, but…loss is something Madara knows intimately, and every time Tobirama snarls at his siblings Madara wants to pull him aside and say _what if you never see them again, how will you feel if those are the last words between you?_ He’s resigned himself to it, and—

And Tobirama’s expression doesn’t harden, it _softens_. He knocks Madara's hand away, but it’s a light swat with no viciousness behind it.

“I know what I'm capable of,” he tells Madara precisely, but there's a look in his eyes like he’s thinking of that fall as well. Thinking of waking up, after being so close to death, and Madara doesn’t know what changed precisely but something _has_.

“You also have cracked skull,” Madara retorts, waspish, because Tobirama looks soft and smug and faintly amused all at once and Madara can hardly even look at his damn face right now, let alone act like a caring human being.

The words earn him a roll of Tobirama’s eyes, eloquent and pointed. “My skull is fine, Madara,” Tobirama insists, because he can't see the way his name framed by that mouth sends a flicker of lightning arcing through Madara's chest. “Was there something you required?”

Memory of Izuna's books—and the way Izuna passed them off to him—is enough to kill that little bit of wonder, and Madara scowls. “Izuna forced me to return his books, and I saw the fire sprites were gone. I thought—” Too much, too revealing, and he snaps his mouth shut before anything else can escape.

It’s too late, apparently, because Tobirama gives him a faintly odd look, somewhere between assessing and startled. He tips his head a little, eyes narrowing as they sweep over Madara, but all he says is, “I let them out.”

For a moment, Madara can't comprehend what he just heard. He stares blankly at Tobirama, trying to work out the meaning of the words, but—there's only one thing he could possibly mean. “You…let them out,” he repeats, bewildered. “ _Fire sprites_.”

Tobirama gives him an impatient look, turning and heading back towards the main desk. “Mages sign summoning contracts with most spirits,” he says as Madara trails along behind him helplessly. “But not sprites.”

“Of course not!” Madara protests. “They're _sprites_. Like—like _cats_. Why would you make a contract with a _cat_?”

Tobirama rounds a shelf before Madara can be entirely sure, but he’s almost entirely certain he catches a huffy, “Cats are perfectly serviceable summons,” over the thud of his own steps. But—that makes no sense, and he scowls, not enjoying the confusion.

“Now what are you going to do for light?” he demands testily, chronically short temper fraying. “The sprites are there for a _reason_! You can't force everyone to read in the dark!”

“I offered them a contract, obviously. Why must you be so _loud_ ,” Tobirama complains, and Madara snarls, offended, opens his mouth to yell—

And Tobirama turns sharply, grabs Madara by the shoulder, and shoves him hard into a table as crackling creature made of electricity slams into the ground where they were standing. It lunges instantly, too fast for Madara to get his legs under him, but it’s not aiming for him. Long lightning claws snatch at Tobirama, but he just steps to the side, lets the sparks miss him by half an inch without even _blinking_. The thing shrieks, turns, _leaps_ , and Madara throws himself out of the tangle of chairs blocking his way, already knowing he’s too slow, too _late_.

Except Tobirama leaps as well, turns over in the air. The loose robe that he’s wearing drops right on top of the construct, obscuring its vision, and he lands lightly, raises a hand—

Madara slams pure power into a spark, lets it surge into a comet-bright blaze, and hurls it down on top of the construct. It’s a strong spell, heavy with malice and hunger, but Madara is Captain of the Guard and stronger still. His flame eats the hostile power, devours it and burns it right from existence, whirls in on itself and vanishes in a ripple of blinding heat that’s gone in an instant.

In the silence that follows, Madara tries to get his breath back, staring at the scorch marks on the floor and grimly running through a mental list of anyone he knows with the power to call up a construct like that. It’s a very short list, and most of them he _knows_ would never go after Tobirama; cutting out their immediate families leaves Madara mostly with question marks, and he dislikes the uncertainty with a passion.

“I'm going to have to scrub that,” Tobirama says, also staring down at the floor, but he looks more vaguely annoyed than anything else.

Gritting his teeth, Madara digs his knuckles into his temple, trying in vain to relieve the pressure of the migraine that’s already starting. “Someone,” he hisses, “just tried to _kill you_! Idiot Senju!”

He’s probably imagining it, but he thinks he catches the faintest amused twitch of Tobirama’s mouth, there and gone before Madara can decide whether he’s seeing things or not. “It’s hardly the first time,” he says blandly, and heads for his desk like nothing even happened.

Madara stares after him, and wonders how satisfying it would be to hit him in that perfect ass with a fireball. Just a small one. A _tiny_ one. Barely a spark. As long as it’s some kind of outlet for Madara's skyrocketing blood pressure, it will be entirely worth it.

“ _You_ —” he starts, but there are so many ways to finish that sentence that they all tangle together on his tongue, and he can't pick any one ending.

“Tell your brother he still has my copy of _The Compendium of Charms_ ,” Tobirama says without so much as glancing at him, eyes focused on the pile of books in front of him. Madara can see his face in profile, though and he’d swear to any god that happens to be listening that the bastard is _smirking_. “And stop lurking outside my library all night. You’ve been worrying Hashirama.”

Madara gapes.

Straightening up, Tobirama scoops up the top four books, tucks them under his arm, and casts Madara a pointed look. Then, without another word, he heads for one of the bookcases, hooks a hand in one of the high shelves, and scales them like a damned _monkey_.

Before Madara can even open his mouth to yell, the bastard is gone.

That headache is coming on like an avalanche, Madara thinks despairingly. He fists a hand in his own hair and wrenches at it, snarling a curse after the idiotic, reckless asshole he has the misfortune to care about, and turns on his heel. The library doors slam closed after him with a satisfying bang, and Madara stalks towards Hashirama’s quarters with frustration driving every step.

He’s going to turn his best friend over and _shake him_ until he gets a satisfactory answer about when in heaven’s name Tobirama learned to move like _that_.


End file.
